It’s finally happened: we are now officially a carbon positive tea shop!

Today’s post is our official announcement, an overview of what we’ve done, and why we’ve done it. There are a lot more articles to come, including our next post which goes into the detailed calculations. For today, we’re going to cover:

 

• Why are carbon footprints important to us? Why have we taken this teashop Carbon Positive?
• How are we taking this teashop Carbon Positive?
• Criticisms of Offsetting, and/or Offsetting with Tree Planting
• Why aren’t we going Carbon Neutral / Net Carbon Zero?
• What are the steps required for a small business to go Carbon Positive?

 

So let’s dive in! And thank you to all our loyal readers and customers who have been traveling with us all this way!

If you want a primer in carbon footprints before starting this blog, see our first part of our carbon series Global Warming and Tea Primer (Going Carbon Positive Part 1). 

 

 

 

Why are carbon footprints important to us? Why have we taken this teashop Carbon Positive?

This has been part of the business since the very beginning.

Within weeks of launching just over two years we introduced our Buy a Tea Bundle Plant a Tree. This is not a gimmick thought up last minute - as our team over the last two years can attest (with all their hard work!) and our loyal readers can confirm too with this being Part 8 of our Carbon and Environment series.

Prior to this final calculation, in fact we had accumulated the planting of 275 trees already!

We the founders, Elizabeth and Vientiene, are unsurprisingly, pro-environment. Elizabeth has a bachelors in Geology (Environmental Sciences) with an Economics minor, and a masters in Aquatic Resource Management (Geography). After starting out in jobs such as managing a London park, volunteering for a London river charity and working freelance for a contaminated land consultancy, Elizabeth worked for years in eco-engineering, restoring rivers, estuaries and lakes.

Elizabeth brings a true scientific background to the project, with considerations on how research is carried out, what makes a robust journal article with robust methodology, and what so-called research is noise to question with a keen eye.

Vientiene doesn’t have the same background steeped in the environment, but at university specialised in the growth of developing nations. In development economics the environment is an essential factor both in resources, protections and other considerations. These helped continue his interest in geo-politics and macro-economic change.

His Bachelor of Economics is interestingly not a BA or BSc a BSc(Econ), a specialised analytical degree in the field and so Vientiene brings years of business consulting experience to the project. While Elizabeth was rescuing rivers and attending scientific conferences, Vientiene was advising small and medium businesses and charities on business processes, technology, supply chains and planning, required skills in analysis and calculations such as this.

 

Fun fact: Elizabeth and Vientiene met and fell in love in Environmental Economics at the same university. The joining of these two sides!

 

All this is to say, environmentally minded business, be it a multinational company or an online teashop, is the future. It is the (correct and essential) way the world is going, even if slower than we would all would like. We as co-founders, want to walk our talk, and with only one planet to walk about on, want to ensure not only we are doing our bit (which often means carbon neutrality) but to go further. More on this in the next chapter.

 

How are we taking this teashop Carbon Positive?

Reduction of the carbon footprint is always the first step, the first priority. We would say this is universally agreed as reducing the production of carbon is better than the effort required to capture it after the carbon-horse has bolted.

 

Reduction of our carbon footprint

We have worked to reduce our carbon footprint across the shop:

• We use simplified packaging - there is no incredible “box experience” with colored cards, glitter, tissue paper, etc. The companies that do this give the buyer a little more of a pleasant feeling for a few seconds, in exchange of pounds more of CO2 in the production, printing and shipping weight.
• We use lightweight reusable recyclable plastic tea envelopes - yes plastic is counterintuitively the lowest carbon footprint of the options. Don’t be fooled by paper-looking packaging as food-safe envelopes are almost always plastic lined for sealing reasons (almost unrecyclable and still plastic). And be very weary of the glass-shipped tea you see with its massive CO2 footprint. Read more about the ethics of plastic packaging, and how it is the lowest carbon footprint here - we already have written 700 words on the subject in our Ethics policy.
• We sell looseleaf tea - the lowest carbon footprint in mind, relative to teabags with their fabrics, plartics, clips, metals, etc. whether they are compostable or not. We limit our teabags to DIY biodegradable versions but happily we don’t sell many at all, reusable filters are the best.
• We run and are building a blog full of resources about climate change, carbon emissions and tea to help readers make informed decisions and reduce their carbon footprints. Links to all in this series are found at the end of the blog.
• Plus in our own tealifes we ensure we boil only the water we require, use the tea we require, re/use tea wherever possible, much more cold brewing etc.
• (Lastly, although this was most certainly not down to us, our fulfilment warehouse has moved from Illinois to Florida this year, seriously reducing the CO2 production from heating!)

We endeavour to continue to reduce our carbon production in the future too, and we already have other ideas and plans in that respect.

You can read more about this subject in our blog Making Your Tea Greener: Environmental impact of teabags, coffee, packaging & more (Going Carbon Positive Part 2)

 

Offsetting the Remainder of Our CO2 Footprint, and Beyond

Reducing carbon emissions is only one side of the coin because most industries (all?) cannot reduce CO2 to zero, especially agriculture and transport, so that includes the supply of the world’s second most drunk drink: tea.

Given there are unavoidable emissions, they must be offset. We must invest in methods which take CO2 or other greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.

Yes, we are offsetting the bulk of our shop’s carbon emissions, we won’t hide that this is an enormous part of our carbon positive strategy. It is a necessary truth: we can’t, and no tea shop can, “reduce” away its emissions in ocean transport, packaging, boiling a kettle, etc. to complete zero.

Unfortunately this is not always understood. We have even encountered a carbon positivity certification that claims one can only be carbon positive if you reduce your total CO2e production to zero, and then start offsetting. This is just about impossible for any business or individual: even hermits might burn wood, and even the modern-day equivalents of “off-gridders” produce tons of carbon in the production of their solar panels, vehicles, powertools, etc. to build and live in their oases.

So, what about us? What method of offsetting have we chosen?

 

 

Source: IPCC, 2021. SPECIAL REPORT Global Warming of 1.5 ºC. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/  

 

We have chosen to go carbon positive via carbon offsetting by tree planting as our main method for reducing our carbon footprint for seven main reasons:

 

1. It works when done correctly
2. Reforestation has many other benefits beyond carbon capture, including habitat preservation and expansion for threatened species
3. It reverses damage we have already done to the world in massive deforestation
4. It is accessible for a small business (unlike other offsetting methods that require the GDP of a small nation such as direct carbon capture and storage)
5. We have the knowledge and background to do this ourselves, rather than waiting for robust carbon positive certifications to be invented (it’s a relatively new concept and more expensive than carbon neutrality so it’s not as popular)
6. Going carbon positive means we are actively removing more CO2 from the environment than we are releasing, which feels like the best thing to do
7. This is the future: we all HAVE to take accountability for our carbon footprints, especially as a business (which has a higher environmental impact than an individual person). All businesses already should be environmentally minded, and this is our approach to taking the most responsibility possible for our actions.

 

In the same way, an analogy would be that yes we all need to do what we can to slow down and stop plastic pollution entering waterways and oceans, and most certainly we have to remove the plastic that humanity has already added too.

 

Criticisms of Offsetting, and/or Offsetting with Tree Planting

There are legitimate questions about offsetting with tree planting, which we have investigated, adapted to, and have concluded it is our best option (as have many climate scientists and others). So, suffice it to know that we have researched, considered and addressed all the challenges of offsetting via tree planting, and incorporated these issues into our calculations and approach.

We’re sure we will be adding other methods in the future too when appropriate and accessible. We will be covering this in much more detail in future blogs, BUT we already have published considerations on this subject which cover some basics:

 

➔ Investigating Carbon Offsetting: What to Look for in the Tea Industry & Beyond (Going Carbon Positive Pt 6)

➔ What are the Main Carbon Offsetting Methods? Top Ways to Capture Carbon & What to Look For (Going Carbon Positive Pt 4)

 

In addition to the below summary, we promise more is to come as we publish our research and analysis which we completed to be sure of the right path to take, and in doing so we established how tree-planting, peat bog protection and certain other CO2e offsetting were positive methods which were effective, available, and accessible to us.

If you can’t wait to read more about the debate around tree planting, when we discuss the drawbacks and critiques of going Carbon Positive, this BBC article Planting trees doesn’t always help with climate change is one of the best, thorough and most accessible summaries we have found on the topic, published in 2020.

 

 

For now, a brief summary of concerns on tree-planting

Again we are well aware of the criticisms but happily they are not broad brush, read them yourselves. They concern how and where, for example, trees are planted as well as managing expectations. There are places trees should not be planted, or can even make climate change worse.

There are many issues such as these which are fixable. For example, researching and carefully considering which organization you fund to plant the trees correctly, respectfully and scientifically. And so really none of the critical articles conclude saying tree planting is bad, but they caution that it is not a silver bullet, a catch-all perfect answer to the climate crisis - and we wholeheartedly agree.

Journalists of course want to get attention grabbing headlines, so you have to open the articles to actually find that the various scientists exploring the issues are usually still pro-tree, just not pro-only-tree. This is their fear - that governments will be lazy in just going with one solution which in and of itself on a global scale will not be enough. Trees are only part of the solution.

When we get into the billions of dollars in sales one day ;-) we will consider opening a direct carbon capture and storage facility in Iceland, but until then we will still be capturing hundreds and (one day) thousands of tons in these ways, offsetting far more than our teashop produces - being a net positive in the world, not just covering our tracks.

 

Why aren’t we going Carbon Neutral / Net Carbon Zero?

 Quick answer: we are going beyond! We are going one better!

Carbon Neutral means reducing and offsetting enough emissions to make you a net zero emitter. For us this is a minimum, certainly a good start, but not enough for us.

The world has gone beyond its CO2 “quota”, to the point where there is consensus (in all the climate research we have found) that whilst the number one priority is reduction, to removal of CO2 or other greenhouse gases which humanity has previously ejected into the atmosphere, is also an essential part of the plan.

This is necessary for the planet to stay on that magic number of a maximum 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels warming path, according to the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in any realistic timeframe.

 

Source: IPCC, 2021. SPECIAL REPORT Global Warming of 1.5 ºC. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/  A useful website from the IPCC to explore the issues “An IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways”

 

 

Sometimes this is referred to as climate action “aligned” with 1.5°C, or in other words, taking actions which are aligned with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C. All individuals and businesses need to be on this pathway. If you’re interested in where you stand, the World Wildlife Fund carbon calculator (link found in our references) explicitly compares your calculation to this direction.

For this reason we wanted to go beyond “carbon neutral” and go “carbon positive”.

Being Carbon Positive (also confusingly called carbon negative) means that shopping with us is actively reducing your carbon footprint elsewhere, rather than just not making the situation worse (i.e. being Carbon Neutral). Because we want to make a real difference, going carbon positive is the obvious option for us.

 

To clear things up if you’re still a little unsure we go through what exactly is Carbon Neutral vs Carbon Positive vs Carbon Negative in our blog Reducing Your Online Business’ Carbon Footprint: Key Factors (Going Carbon Positive Part 3)

 

To say that again, carbon positivity is where our actions result in less CO2e in the atmosphere than if the tea shop didn’t exist. It is better than being carbon neutral.

 

When you buy tea with us you join us in actively reducing carbon that exists in the air (rather than just trying to keep the tea purchase’s carbon impact at net zero). Get started with our latest black teas!!

 

 

Certification As Carbon Zero or Carbon Positive

In a future blog, we will go through our decision not to go for a Carbon Neutral or Positive certification. As a summary, we can share a few base reasons now however:

One reason for example, is that Carbon Positivity is fairly new in terms of the public at large and so the certification industry is far less developed. Other issues concern the size of an organisation, access to supply chains, etc. allowing much larger companies to investigate more accurately, in person in their iPhone factory in China for example, whereas small companies are limited to commissioning desk studies.

Our greater knowledge of our own business and the tea industry, business processes, and environmental and economics degrees allow us to complete such desk studies ourselves. Naturally not everyone has this knowledge so it makes sense for others to use a third-party organisation. For us, a commissioned study will be led by people unfamiliar with the tea industry and all the processes and stages that need to be accounted for.

Finally, we will also mention how many certifications are about “alignment”, with goals to become neutral or positive but requires no action to get the badge. Some certifications are subject to greenwashing.

In the meantime, we share our methodology below and a summary of the numbers, and will be publishing more on this in due course. If you would like to ask us any questions however before we get to this, please feel free.

We also massively over-offset as you will read about further into this blog, to compensate for any unintentional mistakes.

 

 

 

What are the steps required for a small business to go Carbon Positive?

This has been a two-year long and complicated project, as we’ve researched, learned and investigated methodology, conducting a thousand calculations about ourselves and finding existing tea industry studies.

Broadly, our approach is a similar method for any company pursuing a carbon certification, including to:

 

1. Conduct an audit to assess the current situation: the audit covered both our specific business such as business and supply chain processes, and the tea industry in general
2. Calculate emissions in a detailed desk study
3. Measure direct emissions where relevant/possible, including in the development and research stage of the business (not just when it started)
4. Assess final figures, incorporate significant margins of error
5. Reduce emissions where possible
6. Offset the remaining carbon footprint
7. ...and then of course create a system to update the emission figures regularly to ensure sufficient offsetting

 

As part of the audit, we learned and detailed every single stage from growing the tea to its final resting place. In the end, this audit was a 60+ page study that we will be publishing as part of our larger report on how we’ve gone carbon positive. We worked with four brilliant Environmental Sciences undergraduates over several months in 2020 and 2021 to prepare this tea industry carbon footprint audit, which allowed for focused, in-depth research (thanks in the Founder’s Note at the end!).

We have written up our detailed methodology for each stage, and that alone is over ten pages long with our spreadsheets running into the thousands of cells of data and calculations - to be shared in due course. (Again, if you want to talk to us to have a look at the unformatted un-prettified workings prior to publishing just ask!)

In general, we found multiple sources per figure used and then added a margin of 1.5 (a 50% increase!) to further insulate against under measurement. For some measurements, it was harder to find scientific studies and so we would average multiple sources, e.g. five sources for the carbon footprint of a laptop.

For other measurements, when we could see they were more robust, such as our data on the CO2 per cup of tea brewed, we took the maximum possible figures as a base even though that meant it was over 5x higher than a “typical” or averaged measurement.

One cool thing about tea is that being a tree in itself it obviously absorbs CO2 itself! Because of this, there are teas, depending on where and how you might drink them, which are actually carbon negative. (We did not use those figures of course but it’s a fun fact!)

The important takeaway is that we repeatedly used conservative numbers, large margins of error multiples, and as you will see, multiplied the required offset at the end to be quadruply-sure we would indeed finally be carbon positive.

 

 

See Part 2 for the Big Reveal of Our Calculations!

Now that you’ve read over 3000 words about our approach, it’s time for a breather, make a cup of tea and stretch your legs!

In our next post, Our Teashop's Journey Part 2: The Big Reveal read about:

 

• Our Carbon Footprint Calculations (and margins of error)
• The Final Numbers: Our Teashop’s Carbon Footprint in Tons of CO2
• The Big Offset: How many trees are we planting / tons of carbon offsetting?
• Where are we Planting? Who have we partnered with?
• Greenwashing and Trust (We’re not perfect & our solution to that!)

 

 

 

Note from the Founders...

WHEW. That was a lot of work! Since we launched this tea shop in 2019, we have wanted to be as ethical and environmentally friendly as possible. Tea is such a wonderful thing that brings so much joy and relaxation, it shouldn’t cause pain and suffering on the way. That’s why all our teas are sourced from members of the Ethical Tea Partnership, and why we have always had tree planting as a central focus in our shop.

We have both learned so much about tea and climate change over the last two years, and it feels amazing to finally complete this research and confidently know that we are carbon positive. We are indebted to the wonderful undergraduates we’ve worked with on this project: thank you Luce Brandt, Cayley Evans, Lauren Hirth and Anna Silverstein for your dedication to this project! And a big thank you to all of our lovely readers, for your words of encouragement and support as we’ve worked away on this!

 

About the Authors & Founders

Elizabeth Ta'eed MSc is a teahead from Vermont and one of the co-founders of MatchaAlternatives.com. She has a BA in Geology & Economics from Mount Holyoke College and an MSc in Aquatic Resource Management from King’s College London. She has worked as a business and environmental consultant for the past decade. Her tea love grew and grew from years through regular visits to Japan, drinking tea while living in London, teaching tea classes in Madrid, and then traveling for four years with Vientiene to research tea for TravellingforTea.com and this shop and blog.

Vientiene Ta’eed is a British teahead and the other co-founder of MatchaAlternatives.com. He has a BSc in Economics from University College London, with a focus on development and environmental economics. He has worked in business consulting and e-mentoring solutions. Her love of tea started with the classic Earl Grey at home, growing up in the UK. Parents from India and Iran meant for more exciting teas on special occasions with boiled milk chais and Persian tea, Earl Grey for fragrance, Ceylon for color, cardamom, cloves, and fresh mint!

This has taken a lot of work and a lot of time to get here. Naturally we as a team have spent countless hours on how carbon is counted, calculated, indirect production, etc. etc. and so at this point would like to express our particular thanks, again, to Luce Brandt for her incredible hard work in producing one of our largest pieces with us - a research report on the processing and production map of tea, for a full understanding of our carbon footprint including all 10 toes!

 

This week's featured teas include...OUR NEW BLACK TEAS!

 

 

Explore our Tea Science & Lifestyle blog	|	Subscribe to the MA Blog to save 15%!

 

 

Read more about tea, emissions & the environment in our Going Carbon Positive series

➔ Part 1: Global Warming and Tea Primer

➔ Part 2: Making Your Tea Greener: Environmental impact of teabags, coffee, packaging & more

➔ Part 3: Reducing Your Online Business’ Carbon Footprint: Key Factors 

➔ Part 4: What are the Main Carbon Offsetting Methods? Top Ways to Capture Carbon & What to Look For

➔ Part 5: What is Greenwashing? Examples of Greenwashing & 'How to Spot It' Free Downloadables

➔ Part 6: Investigating Carbon Offsetting: What to Look for in the Tea Industry & Beyond

➔ Part 7: Where Does Your Tea Water Come From? 3 Water Rights Case Studies in North America

 

 

References & Further Reading About All Things Carbon Positivity

 

Here are a few of our sources, but this is far from exhaustive. For example, we have 6.5 pages of bibliography in our internal carbon report which is not included here (!).

 

About Carbon Positivity, Neutrality & Climate Change:

Carbon Positive Australia. Carbon Positive: Moving Beyond Carbon Neutral. Carbon Positive Australia. https://carbonpositiveaustralia.org.au/learn/about-carbon/carbon-neutral-to-carbon-positive/

Climate Neutral, 2021. Climate Neutral Certified Pricing. https://www.climateneutral.org/pricing

Ekos. Zero Carbon & Climate Positive Certification. https://ekos.co.nz/zero-carbon-climate-positive

Carbon Neutral, 2021. The CarbonNeutral Protocol. Certified Carbon Neutral Global Standard.  https://www.carbonneutral.com/the-carbonneutral-protocol/technical-specifications-and-guidance/step-3-target-1/3-3-climate-or-carbon-or-net-positive

Carbon Neutral, 2021. How. Certified Carbon Neutral Global Standard. https://carbonneutral.com/how

Climate Neutral, 2021. Frequently Asked Questions. Certified Carbon Neutral Global Standard. https://www.climateneutral.org/faq

Go Climate Positive, 2021. Show your commitment to the climate. https://go-positive.co.uk/get-carbon-certificate 

Go Climate Positive, 2021. Save more carbon than you create to Go Climate Positive.  https://go-positive.co.uk/go-climate-positive

Go Climate Positive, 2021. Membership Pricing. https://go-positive.co.uk/pricing

IPCC, 2021. SPECIAL REPORT Global Warming of 1.5 ºC. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Accessed 01/09/21 https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ A useful website from the IPCC to explore the issues “An IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways”

Business Ambition for 1.5C, Join the Campaign for Our Only Future, Accessed 01/09/21 https://www.unglobalcompact.org/take-action/events/climate-action-summit-2019/business-ambition

Climate Forcing, Energy from the Sun Interacts with Land, Water, and Air, Climate.gov, Accessed 01/09/21 https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/climate-data-primer/predicting-climate/climate-forcing 

The Nature Conservancy, 2021. Calculate Your Carbon Footprint. https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon-footprint-calculator/ - Average American’s CO2 footprint is 16 tons

Carbon Independent, 2021. UK average footprint. CarbonIndependent.org  https://www.carbonindependent.org/23.html - Average UK resident’s CO2 footprint is 11 tons (10 tonnes)

CNG, 2021. What Exactly Is 1 Tonne of CO2? Climate Neutral Group. https://www.climateneutralgroup.com/en/news/what-exactly-is-1-tonne-of-co2/ 

RS, RAE, 2018. Greenhouse gas removal. Royal Society; Royal Academy of Engineering. ISBN: 978-1-78252-349-9. https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/greenhouse-gas-removal/royal-society-greenhouse-gas-removal-report-2018.pdf 

RS, RAE, 2018. Greenhouse gas removal: Summary. Royal Society; Royal Academy of Engineering. https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/greenhouse-gas-removal/royal-society-greenhouse-gas-removal-executive-summary-2018.pdf 

Ocean Cleanup, 2021. We Aim To Clean Up 90% Of Floating Ocean Plastic Pollution. The Ocean Cleanup. https://theoceancleanup.com/donate/ 

Travel, Flight & Digital Footprints

BBC, 2019. Climate change: Should you fly, drive or take the train? BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49349566 

Vidal, J, 2019. Offsetting carbon emissions: ‘It has proved a minefield’ The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/aug/02/offsetting-carbon-emissions-how-to-travel-options 

ICAO, 2016. ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator. https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Carbonoffset/Pages/default.aspx 

Atmosfair, 2021. On CO₂ calculation: How is the atmosfair offsetting contribution calculated? Atmosfair. https://www.atmosfair.de/en/faqs/on_co2_calculation/

Atmosfair, 2016. Atmosfair Flight Emissions Calculator: Documentation of the Method and Data. Astmosfair. https://www.atmosfair.de/wp-content/uploads/atmosfair-flight-emissions-calculator-englisch-1.pdf 

Barret, Didier. (2020). Estimating, monitoring and minimizing the travel footprint associated with the development of the Athena X-ray Integral Field Unit: An on-line travel footprint calculator released to the science community. Experimental Astronomy. 49. 10.1007/s10686-020-09659-8. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-atmosfair-carbon-emission-calculator-provides-two-estimates-for-the-flight-emission_fig6_342164485 

Wikipedia, 2021. Atmosfair. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosfair

Atmosfair, 2021. Calculate Flight Emissions. https://www.atmosfair.de/en/offset/flight/ 

EPA, 2021. Greenhouse Gas Emissions from a Typical Passenger Vehicle. United States Environmental Protection Agency. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle 

Bailey, J; Cohen, A, 2021. That “Dreaded” Commute Is Actually Good for Your Health. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/05/that-dreaded-commute-is-actually-good-for-your-health 

Jones, N, 2015. How to stop data centres from gobbling up the world’s electricity. Nature.com https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06610-y 

ClimateCare, 2021. Infographic: The Carbon Footprint of the Internet. ClimateCare. https://www.climatecare.org/resources/news/infographic-carbon-footprint-internet/ 

WWF, 2021. How Big Is Your Environmental Footprint? World Wildlife Foundation. https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/#/ 

Tree carbon storage:

Stephenson, N., Das, A., Condit, R. et al. Rate of tree carbon accumulation increases continuously with tree size. Nature 507, 90–93 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12914 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12914 

Source: Loehle, C. (1988). "Tree life history strategies: the role of defenses." Canadian Journal of Forest Research 18(2): 209-222. https://bigtree.cnre.vt.edu/lifespan.html 

EIONET, 2012. Trees help tackle climate change. European Environment Information and Observation Network (Eionet) https://www.eea.europa.eu/articles/forests-health-and-climate-change/key-facts/trees-help-tackle-climate-change 

Bra, K, 2021. Does planting trees actually fight climate change? Sustainable Travel International. https://sustainabletravel.org/does-planting-trees-fight-climate-change/ 

Ovo Energy, 2020. Trees: nature's carbon-eating machines. Ovo Energy. https://www.ovoenergy.com/blog/green/trees-natures-carbon-eating-machines

Collins, P. 2021. How much CO2 does a tree absorb? Selectra. https://climate.selectra.com/en/news/co2-tree

EcoTree, 2021. How much CO2 does a tree absorb? EcoTree. https://ecotree.green/en/how-much-co2-does-a-tree-absorb

Marshall, M, 2020. Planting trees doesn’t always help with climate change. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200521-planting-trees-doesnt-always-help-with-climate-change 

Unger, N, 2014. Op-Ed: To Save the Planet, Don’t Plant Trees. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/opinion/to-save-the-planet-dont-plant-trees.html 

Fairs, M, 2021. Planting trees "doesn't make any sense" in the fight against climate change due to permanence concerns, say experts. De Zeen. https://www.dezeen.com/2021/07/05/carbon-climate-change-trees-afforestation/

 

Carbon footprint of tea:

Doublet, G.; Jungbluth, N. Life Cycle Assessment of Drinking Darjeeling Tea. In Conventional and Organic Darjeeling Tea; ESU-services Ltd. Uster: Schaffhausen, Switzerland, 2010; Available online: http://www.avnir.org/documentation/bdd/sg/doublet-2010-LCA-Darjeeling-tea-1.0.pdf 

Ruby, F., 2009. Écolo, votre tasse de thé? PasseportSanté.net https://www.passeportsante.net/fr/Actualites/Nouvelles/Fiche.aspx?doc=bilan-carbone-ecolo-votre-tasse-de-the-2009092590

Wijeratne, Thushari. (2018). Assessing and reducing the environmental impact of tea cultivation. 10.19103/AS.2017.0036.20. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323353887_Assessing_and_reducing_the_environmental_impact_of_tea_cultivation 

Berners-Lee, M &  Clark, D, 2010. What's the carbon footprint of ... a cup of tea or coffee? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/jun/17/carbon-footprint-of-tea-coffee

Berners-Lee, M, 2010. How Bad are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything. Green Profile; Main edition (13 May 2010). ISBN-13:‎ 978-1846688911

Steenbergs, 2015. What’s the carbon footprint of your cuppa? Steenburgs. https://steenbergs.co.uk/blog/whats-the-carbon-footprint-of-your-cuppa

Sauer, J.L., 2009. Tea’s Carbon Footprint. Samovar. https://www.samovartea.com/teas-carbon-footprint/

FSA, 2020. Milk added to tea and coffee measures program. Food Standards Australia. https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/science/monitoringnutrients/ausnut/foodmeasures/Pages/2011-Dash-and-splash-measures-program.aspx

Bernet, R, 2021. How Much Co2 Does A Tree Absorb?. One Tree Planted. https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/how-much-co2-does-tree-absorb 

CO2 Meter, 2021. Could Global CO2 Levels be Reduced by Planting Trees? CO2 Meter. https://www.co2meter.com/blogs/news/could-global-co2-levels-be-reduced-by-planting-trees 

 

Tree Mortality, Tree Planting & Carbon Capture from Trees:

Roman, Lara & Scatena, Frederick. (2011). Street tree survival rates: Meta-analysis of previous studies and application to a field survey in Philadelphia, PA, USA. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening - URBAN FOR URBAN GREEN. 10. 269-274. 10.1016/j.ufug.2011.05.008.   

Nowak, David J.; Kuroda, Miki; Crane, Daniel E. 2004. Tree mortality rates and tree population projections in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Urban Forestry Urban Greening. 2: 139-147

Sue Britting, Mark Smith, Chip Ashley, Lauren Pile, Ramiro Rojas, Adam Hernandez, and Sarah LaPlante, 2017. REFORESTATION FRAMEWORK: Dinkey Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project. The Landscape Planning Working Group. https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd601697.pdf 

Pandey, D, 1995. Forest resources assessment 1990 Tropical forest plantation resources. Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. ISBN92-5-103730-2. https://www.fao.org/3/v8330e/V8330E00.htm#TOC

OneTreePlanted, 2021. Appalachia. OneTreePlanted. https://onetreeplanted.org/collections/united-states/products/appalachia 

Arbor Day Foundation, 2021. Replanting Our Forests: Chesapeake Bay.  Arbor Day Foundation https://www.arborday.org/programs/replanting/

OTP, 2021. Global Forest Watch: Interactive Deforestation Map. One Tree Planted. https://onetreeplanted.org/pages/global-forest-watch